Time for Plaid’s ‘older generation’ to wise up on independence

In a speech to Cymru Yfory at last week’s Eisteddfod, Plaid veteran Cynog Dafis declared …

“by putting the emphasis on independence, we take our eye off the really important ball, which is to achieve things for Wales in the here and now.” “We need to be getting things right in the short term”, he continued, “rather than becoming too concerned about ‘the wonderful place over there’.” Dafis also warned of Plaid’s enemies reviving the spectre of the ‘slippery slope’ argument “according to which, if you give the Assembly greater powers, you are inevitably on a slippery slope to independence.”

Diplomatic as ever – as any future leader of a ‘broad church’ party such as Plaid has to be, and let’s not make any bones about it, he is the leader Wales is waiting for – Adam Price praised Dafis for expressing his concerns which will, Price writes,

“be shared by many of the older generation in the party”. He continues “We need to create a new generation of nationalists. We do that through presenting clear arguments as to why our vision of an independent Wales offers the greatest opportunity for social progress and prosperity.”

Quite so, but why this reticence on the part of the ‘older generation’? Those who joined the party in the 1960s and before will clearly remember the three very simple aims set out on the membership card long before the party got bogged down in pensions and PFI. Point three included the stated objective of gaining a place for Wales at the United Nations. What part of that aim did the ‘older generation’ – then the ‘Young Turks’ of the party – fail to understand? And if it understood it then, why does it fail to understand it now?

The aim of any dependent, colonised nation must inevitably be independence, and Wales, like Scotland – and like Ireland before them – is no exception. Self-government along federal lines may suit a more-or-less homogeneous nation like Germany, but not a grouping of very different nations such as we have in the British Isles, some of which have been brought together by force, but have never lost their identity – nor, indeed, sense of destiny. Independence, one might say, is THE manifest destiny of nations.

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